


Cherry Wine

by girlofmars



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Mutual Pining, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Yearning, so much yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26403973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlofmars/pseuds/girlofmars
Summary: There was a prompt making the rounds and I thought I'd take a whack at it.Post-timeskip, Felix decided to take a chance on siding with The Empire and now resides a bit north of Enbarr in a secluded cottage. Sylvain, having stayed in Faerghus to fight for The Kingdom, attempted to lead an ambush on Hubert's encampment in Hresvelg, but was surprised to find they'd been expecting him. After a narrow escape from death, he all but crawls up the doorstep of the person he once trusted most.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Cherry Wine

As if the night had not been dreary enough, the night sky wept upon Sylvain's crestfallen figure, washing the blood that crowned his head. Though his boots could barely lift him from the mud and his lashes sank under the weight of the barraging raindrops, his weary bones held his consciousness long enough to reach the hearth emanating from the cabin ahead. His armor and lance had split as if struck by lightning, felt heavier than usual. Weighing down each already near impossible step he took. But the mere thought that the very last thing he'd lay his gaze upon before being engulfed by death's darkest shadows was the face he knew to live beyond that cabin's door, that was enough to fan the flames in his heart to crawl further.

Yes, just past that door, sat by the crackling fire, Felix brandished his sword as if it were the fragile wings of a silver pheasant. Second to weakness in combat, there was nothing Felix despised more than the rain. It flooded his sternum with the dread of memories he longed to forget. If he were stronger his brother would not have crumpled in his arms after being shot in the back by a hundred fiery arrows while trying to shield him. If he were stronger he could have taken the Sword of the Creator for himself and cut down those who slither in the dark before a war could ever break out again. If he were stronger he would have felt invincible with Sylvain at his side. If he were stronger... he wouldn't push everyone he cared for away out of fear he lacked the ability to protect them.

A faint thump freed him from the thorny bramble of his brooding. He thought it might be another fox lurking in the night, desperately scourging for its next meal despite the storm overhead. He sauntered toward the door, hair unkempt like the swirls of the milky way, dancing about the shoulders of his disheveled blouson. The hilt of his blade never left his palm as he undid the locks. And as his fingers curled around the edge of the wood, his eyes widened at the sight of not a fox, but a fox's tuft that laid claim on the head of the man he only ever saw behind closed lids, slumped abreast the frame. Sylvain raked his tired eyes over Felix's visage, not having the remaining strength he craved to brush away the ink tendril that frayed from his scalp for the first and last time. Instead, he chose to lose the last bit of his awareness in Felix's golden irises. "I-I didn't know... where else... to go," He said with the faintest smile betwixt ragged breaths just before collapsing face-first into Felix's arms. 

Felix careened on the balls of his feet under the weight of Sylvain's heavy armor and the outpour of questions the floodgates in his mind were unequipped to hold back. He squinted while scanning the outskirts of his home to be sure no one had followed Sylvain to his doorstep. Startling warmth crept over the skin of Felix's chest where Sylvain's forehead pressed against him. Feverish. Without another moment left to pass, Felix heaved Sylvain's arm over his shoulders and carried him as best he could to his bed. 

After quickly propping Sylvain's lance on an interior wall and taking a second glance outside, Felix firmly shut the door and locked up. He returned to where he laid Sylvain down and got to work trying to pry off his armor. He noted the cracks and burn marks in the steel. Dark mages, he thought. Beneath the metal, a sea of bruises littered Sylvain's arms and abdomen. Although the pain was not his own, Felix's brow furrowed as he followed the deep purple staining Sylvain's already scarred skin. 

Felix padded over to the other end of the room and procured a cloth and bucket of water to cool Sylvain's fever whilst he tended to his wounds with a basket of ointments and bandages gifted to him a few months prior by Dorothea for aiding her with medical deliveries. He crouched at his bedside once more, wringing the dampened cloth and then lightly touching it to the planes of Sylvain's forehead and cheeks. Waves of confliction swelled within his breast as he drank Sylvain up from the curve of his lashes down the slope of his pointed nose past his cupid's bow and unto his weathered lips. It may be the face he sought to find every witching hour in his dreams, but it was that of which was meant to be his adversary. 

He should kill him. He should hand him over to Edelgard in Enbarr to do with him what she will, be it torture imprisonment, or what have you. But why couldn't he, he wondered. 

As if five years had not changed a thing, there he sat washing the blood from his already reddened hair with silken strokes. Because for this momentary shard of time, while no one was looking, he wanted to live in his dreams as if nothing could tear them apart. 

But Sylvain stirred and his eyes fluttered open, making Felix draw his hand back. "Well shit, guess I'm not dead," Sylvain groggily mumbled, wincing while attending to sit up.

All those same questions from earlier bloomed on Felix's tongue, but he didn't know where to start. Each attempt left his mouth agape and shut a dozen times with little more than a grunt. The grimace he wore reminded Sylvain of an alley cat that had its tail stepped on by a passing stranger, brewing a rasped chuckle in his throat. And so he spoke up again, "Cat got your tongue?" 

"You know I didn't think it possible for you to become an even more immense idiot than you already were, but you're a world-class moron, Sylvain," Felix stated as he rose from the floor with a frustrated huff. "Waltzing right up to the den of your _enemy_ asking yourself to be killed? I mean hah, seriously..." He swiftly drew his sword and swung the blade, acquainting the tip with Sylvain's chin. "What's stopping me from ending your life right here and now?" 

The air between them became thick as morning fog sure to follow the rain. Orbs of honey pooled into those of caramel, but neither held an ounce of sweetness. Sylvain cast a wry smile, "Everything and nothing it seems. I'm in no shape to fight you off so despite safeguarding me for the last few hours if you're so bent on disposing of me you may as well get on with it. I'm all yours, Fe." He outstretched his arms to emphasize his surrender. 

Felix retracted almost immediately. "I'm not some coward who would attack someone who couldn't fight back."

Sylvain hummed, "I know that much. You could always turn me in. Not sure the Enbarr dungeons would be ideal for my complexion though."

"If anyone's ever to defeat you it's going to be me," Felix muttered quietly.

"Hm? What was that?" Sylvain cocked an eyebrow.

Felix crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at Sylvain. "How the hell did you know where to find me?" He interrogated.

He wrung the nape of his neck in reluctance before answering, "I _might_ have had a little bird scope out the territory." 

"You sent someone to _spy_ on me?" Felix's temper began to rise. It was the one emotion he never learned to harness, for it only fueled his passion on the battlefield. 

"Forgive me for wanting to check that you were still alive and kicking." Sylvain raised flexed his palms in a defensive stance. 

Felix's fury only grew more untamed with each response, "I can take care of myself just fine, Sylvain. Maybe if you stopped assuming I was the same useless, weak child you once knew-"

"Not one day, not a _single_ minute have I ever thought you to be anything of the sort, Felix," Sylvain interrupted, his voice pained and his expression downcast.

Felix trembled with umbrage where he stood, "Then quit trying to protect me when you're supposed to despise me. We're enemies. We're on different sides now. Leave the past to die."

Droplets painted the window with his every word. And he regretted each one, as he always had. Especially met with the tears of heartbreak brimming in Sylvain's eyes. 

"Is that what you really think? That you could run off one day and I'd hate you that easily? Is that what you truly want?" Felix's composure wavered and his trembling ceased, body turned to stone leaving Sylvain to continue, "How much more vulnerable do I have to make myself? How much more of my flesh must be torn down to ivory for my soul to be bared enough for you to really see me for what I am?" 

"Shut up." Felix turned away, unable to bear the feeling of his defenses crumbling to dust. Knowing he threw everything he believed aside just to devise an impenetrable fortress that now held the resistance of a house of cards. Sylvain slid to the edge of the bed.

"Felix."

"Shut _up_."

On his feet, Sylvain treaded softly toward Felix, reaching a hand toward his cheek. 

"Felix, look at me." Sylvain pleaded, fingers grazing Felix's jaw. 

He cringed at the sudden contact, but couldn't move an inch. "Don't," Was all he could manage in a voice strained from fighting back tears that had already wet Sylvain's knuckles.

"Felix. I-" Sylvain's next two words were swallowed by velvet desperation; a kiss that could scorch the earth and rival a thousand suns. Loose coils of midnight blue enveloped him in the dizzying scent of cindered teakwood, guiding his hands instinctively to their roots. Enraptured symphonies bubbled within Felix and his mouth took hold of Sylvain's as if the war was between their teeth and his tongue was set out to vanquish. 

Sylvain walked them backward until he hit the bed frame. In one swoop, he lifted Felix unto the mattress and hovered over him as he breathlessly chased his kiss. Lustfully, Sylvain mused at Felix's blown pupils and swollen lip. He brought his hand to a cheek as soft and pink as the tulips his mother used to admire in the garden of his childhood home. The garden he'd play hide and seek in with Felix nearly every day. Where they spent afternoons under the shade of a grand willow tree studying strategy and weaponry until the sun fell. And where they made a pact to fight together until their hands withered and turned to ash. 

"I love you. I love the feisty, petulant, stubborn, hot-headed you. Please come home. Please let me be your home." 

Felix raised a hand to clasp Sylvain's, shifting to place a feather-light peck on his wrist. "As long as you never get in my way." He replied with a sly grin.

"Ugh, you're impossible!" Sylvain groaned and sank back down; retaliation in the form of lovebites from earlobe to collarbone. A trail of rose petals blossomed on Felix's neck and Sylvain felt that the garden they used to roam could never be as beautiful.

Felix's calloused fingers found purchase in the dampened ruby waves atop Sylvain's skull, drawing him closer until their foreheads met. "You aren't my weakness, you're my strength. I really love you."

By the light of the moon, they tasted every indentation in their canvasses. Not a scar left unkissed. Patches of cherry wine laced their thighs. Mouths blissfully ruined. They embraced one another, cradled in warmth absent for too long. Never to part again.

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe we're both crying. I love these idiots too much.
> 
> If you're a fan of Dororo I wrote a little fic for that too.
> 
> Be safe, be healthy.


End file.
